Ableton Forum

Finding the trackpad on my MBP a bit slow for editing/production work and I'm looking for ways to speed up my workflow soo....

I've looked at the Kensington Orbit trackball and some of the Wacom tablets, what's everyone's opinion on the best way to speed up the mundane tasks in Live?! Trackball? Tablet? Something else?! I'd like to be able to intuitively bang out stuff like automation lines, MIDI and warping tasks so I have more time to make teh musikz!

Cheers,

J

I swear by a thumb trackball. Have been since 1994. Hang out with me for 3 minutes when I'm warping or editing waveforms.

Anyone on here that knows me knows I'm pretty humble, but I almost want to call a challenge or contest and see who can clean shit up quicker.

Put me back on a trackpad... Not so much. Multifinger support might open some doors but until then...

As for the wacom tablets, we've got two at the lab at my work. One of them is a 21" screen type... It's freaking cool as a walk in freeezer. For doing audio editing though, more of a burden.

Protip:when it comes to waveform warping and piano roll editing the next logical step will be multi touch gestures. Wacom tablets that I've messed around that require a stylus and Have yet to personally open up faster 'workflow' for me.

I would be more than ecstatic for someone to shoot my rant down and to show me what I am missing status quo. I'll buy you a drink or scone or whatever.

Haha, are they really that quick? Which specific model do you use?
I was thinking maybe a tablet looks better for arranging and MIDI drawing, with a trackball used in tandem.. but I am on a pretty tight budget so ideally one device would be better!

I have one of the cheap ($40) Wacom Bamboo tablets and it's fun for graphic stuff but sometimes behaves weird in Live. Sliders will jump up to the top or bottom instead of adjusting smoothly, zooming does something similar, haven't found any setting that affects it. It would also be better to get one with programmable buttons if you go that route, you probably don't even think about how convenient it is having a trackpad right next to the keyboard. For me, cleaning the trackpad occasionally and switching to a mouse sometimes works better. Anything can seem kind of slow and uncomfortable if you use it all the time for this stuff.